harness, and our meager incomes began to seem less bleak besides. The townspeople had surely been hungry all the years of their lives, because as much food as we brought them, they were able to eat.
But since Adam’s fall it has been our lot for circumstances to try our intelligence and faith. And look you: we had been satisfied until that time, but as soon as the prospect of a better fortune became manifest, we pursued it with all our hearts and minds. Over the summer and fall we built larger, stronger carts, capable of increasing our material wealth; and their increased size did not make them unkind to our precious beasts, all of whom now bore names. When at last we perfected our new carts—when they were as big as we desired them, and as sturdy—we had had our fill of inventing. One Market Day that winter we arrived at the gates of the city as the Prime bells began to ring in the dark morning. Ydlbert was at the front of the line, leading the proud black Thea by her reins. We heard a thump, then Thea’s whinnying complaint. She stamped her feet for punctuation.
“Ydlbert?” I called to him, leaving Hammadi’s reins in Mandrik’s idle hands. “Brother von Iggislau, what ails you?” My breath left me in a chill cloud.
Jungfrau said, “Bad news, I’ll wager. It’s about time the Devil caught up with us.” I had lately noticed that small children kept their distance from him.
As I approached the gate, I could see only the rear of the cart, protruding. Ydlbert and his horse appeared to be already somewhere inside. The cart began to shake, and first Ydlbert’s hands, then his whole head and torso appeared atop his carrots and turnips. “The blasted thing’s stuck. It’s stuck in the bloody gate.”
Jungfrau let out a hoot, and good Ion Gansevöort hushed him. Some of the boys were giggling, though.
I said, “That can’t be.”
Ydlbert tumbled over the vegetables and landed solidly on the ground. “Look, then.” He wiped himself clean, then blew into his hands, as he led me to the front of the cart. Indeed, the cart had caught both sides of the narrow gate. At least two hands’ width of cart would not fit through.
We backed the horses up and led them to the side of the road while we conferred—the townsmen treated us bitterly when we left horses near the church, so we did not want to block their ingress and egress through the Great West Gate. It was a bitter chill, though thankfully without snow, and every moment’s delay made us more impatient. We had brought our tarpaulins to cover the ground before the church; now each of us lay his on the hard ground, filled it with as many vegetables as he could hoist, and carried the load into town, just as it was in the days of our grandfathers’ grandfathers, who knew not how horses could be made to do a man’s labor. The Martin brothers, Heinrik and Jepho, were bent so far under the weight of their burdens that their spectacular height was reduced to that of ordinary men. The sun was well up when finally we set our goods out to market; the townsfolk quibbled over the freshness of the food, and we left with numb fingers, half our goods still in the carts, and light pockets.
A while past dark, I reached Ydlbert’s home. The middle boys, who’d come with us, ran to the warm hearth; the smallest were strung up dreaming in their hammocks; and the elder two were not to be seen, though likely out lifting the skirts of Heinrik Martin’s and Desvres’s nubile daughters. Anya, weary-eyed, plunked bowls of porridge onto the table, then retired to her fireside chair, where she wound yarn from her distaff into a ball. At her feet an infant cat unwound yarn from another ball, but Anya worked more quickly, ensuring that the progress of the yarn was overall for the good.
“Was it a good day at market?” she asked. Her thin lips scarcely moved when she spoke, so tired was she from her days of rearing sons.
Ydlbert poured us milk from the bucket. “The new carts are too wide to fit through the city gates, and we had to carry the vegetables on our backs.”
“Monkeys, all,” Anya said, though we knew monkeys only from my brother’s stories of abroad.
“It was dreadful, wife.”
“Now you know what it’s like to trudge about with seven bairns inside you,” she said, and stood up to check the smaller children’s placement in their hammocks.
Ydlbert ladled more porridge into our wooden bowls. “We have to do something about that gate, is all,” he said.
“Cast a spell?”
“Talk to the Archduke.”
When I arose the next morning at sunup, Ydlbert was crouched on my stoop, holding a baked potato, that miraculous and most nourishing food my brother so providentially brought back with him from the Beyond, for warmth. The dog eyed his provisions greedily. “For the sake of the Lord God,” I said, “you can come in, man.”
“No time,” he said.
“We’ve got hot porridge, and some fine pickles.”
“And no time to eat it. This matter cannot wait.”
I wrapped myself up in my warmest garments, and we detoured up the side path to fetch my brother from his simple hut. We found him cutting back the dead vines in his winter arbor. Mandrik was the only man in the village besides myself and Father Stanislaus who could write, and had a fairer hand than I for drafting a petition. Besides, if nothing else, good luck followed him like the stink follows a stuffed cabbage; and he brought along his psaltery, and sang a song of his own devising to while away the walking time and to ease our restless spirits.
We can’t fit our carts
Through the city gates.
No, we can’t fit our carts
Through the city gates.
But we gone petition the Archduke
Before it gets too late.
Now, Ydlbert and Yves,
They don’t believe in what I write.
“Yes, we do, brother,” I interjected, to which Ydlbert appended, “Amen.”
Yes, they doubt me like Thomas,
They don’t thinks I’m all right.
Just wait until we reach the castle
And everything’s gonna be out of sight.
Despite Mandrik’s optimism, we knew we had no chance of being admitted to his Urbanity’s presence. What was he to do—accept petitions from every bumpkin farmer who came urgently to seek his counsel? No, we would leave our letter, beautifully penned in fine black ink by my brother, with our humble entreaties for kindness and mercy.
The Archduke’s castle stood sentinel over the southern half of the town. As we approached from the west, its crenellated towers loomed over the walls, theoretically protecting them from barbarian invaders, though, for one thing, Nnms had never been invaded, and, for another, if I were a barbarian, a place with good masonry would be my choicest choice for attack. None of us had ever been to the castle—the Archduke sent his red-liveried men around the village whenever he needed anything—though its towers were all we could see, except the steeple of the church, over the walls.
Once inside we did not turn, as was our custom, toward the sanctuary,
